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One man, Brin Gleeson, even had to bid on a property without seeing it first - after a year of searching - just to get ahead.

Mr Gleeson said: “We managed to put several bids in, only to see us outbid by cash buyers. There are a lot of investors coming in and buying them, you just can’t compete with that because for the vendor it’s great.

“The only reason, I think, that I got my bid accepted for this flat is because of the way I went about it. If I let it get viewed by someone else then it definitely would have gone.”

Estate agents, JLL, recently said that buyers can now expect to pay as much as £230,000 for a two-bedroom flat, and predict prices to rise by another 7% this year.

And there is no sign of it slowing down - JLL also expects to see prices rocket by more than 29% in the next four years.

However, despite the positive news for the region’s property market, Hometrack’s report suggests growth could have reached its peak now.

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According to the report: “While growth in Manchester has hit close to 9%, the supply/demand dynamics are not strong enough in regional cities outside southern England to support double digit rates of house price growth.”

Surprisingly, London came tenth in the list, with growth of 5.6% - equal with Sheffield and Nottingham.

(Image: PA)

Here are average house prices in February in the 20 cities in Hometrack’s index, and the year-on-year increase: